Broken
by prelude.to.death
Summary: "To George Weasley, every mirror is the Mirror of Erised."


Broken  
Fred and George Weasley

* * *

George knew when it had happened. When Fred had... It was hard to say the word, but what good would it be for him to deny it had happened? It wasn't like if he refused to acknowledge it, Fred would be back again. No, his twin was dead. His other half, the boy who was simultaneously him and not him, was gone, and George felt it in his heart, felt the gaping hole that would never be replaced.

Before the battle had begun, he had known. Yes, he had known all along. One of them was going to die. He had tried so hard to fulfill his own prophecy, to throw himself at every masked Death Eater who even so much as touched the outskirts of his path through the castle. It was all in vain.

A shiver ran down his spine just as he stunned another cloaked figure, and that was when he knew. His blood ran cold, chilling him to the bone. No, deeper than the bone, for whatever bond they had shared – seemingly inseparable – was now severed. Just like that, someone had cut it, cut off Fred's lifeline, cut off George's lifeline. His wand dropped from his hand, sliding between the loose grip of his uncaring fingers. He knew he was in the middle of a battle, and he knew how dangerous it was to allow yourself to be unarmed, but at the moment, he didn't fucking care.

There were so many emotions running through him at once, an overwhelming tidal wave that almost made him feel as if he didn't feel anything at all. Numb. That was certainly the right word to use, wasn't it? Yes, of course it was. He felt the familiar burning at the back of his eyes, but the tears wouldn't come. Of course they couldn't come. He had only ever been able to cry, to pour his heart out to his older brother, who was now the sole reason for his grief.

Finally, he squeezed his eyelids shut, forcing a single thin droplet to fall down his cheek, where it mingled with his sweat. More tears. One. Two. Again and again, they kept on coming, like he had unleashed a dam. But now, he couldn't tell which one was a tear for Fred, and which was a tear for himself. Fred had left; he'd been fortunate enough to abandon his grief, to just let everything go and fall into that soothing abyss of death. What about him? He had to continue facing the masked figures who killed his brother, and he had to continue facing the society that shunned his intimate relationship with his twin, the same society that claimed to be tolerant of others.

The battle continued to roar around him, but it was all background noise to him. It was almost comical how he went about unnoticed in the midst of the battle. Almost. Wiping his tears away with a dirty thumb and blowing his nose on his tattered sleeve, George slipped away from the battle, heading to a place that only he and Fred knew.

It was uncanny, really, that nobody knew of this place, that nobody but he and Fred had ever been here. Sometimes they wondered if batty, old Dumbledore even knew about it. After all, even the Marauders hadn't known about it, and if they did, they certainly didn't add it onto that ingenious map of theirs. It was just a dirty old classroom that nobody ever used, but to him, it was a place where he and Fred had spent countless nights together, sometimes planning out their future, other times partaking in activities that weren't quite as... innocent.

It was the room where he had had his first kiss. Where Fred had had his, too. Of course, the room held a lot more value than that, though. They had come across the mirror by complete accident one night when his foot had gotten tangled in some sheets. What had Fred called it? The Mirror of Erised? Something like that. Of course Fred had known what it was. He had always been the wittier of the two, the one who knew more about practically anything and everything. But George hadn't minded. He never did, because simply being with his twin was enough for him.

He remembered the last thing he had seen in the mirror, back before he and Fred had escaped from the school, when that old toad Umbridge was still in charge. So much had changed since then, though, and it frightened him to think of what he would see now. No, he knew what he would see in that mirror now. He just didn't know if he could handle it.

Fred had always seen them running a joke shop together. George knew that. But despite the fact that he loved the dream as much as his twin did, he never could see it. Oh, he pretended to, and Fred always knew he was lying, but the other boy never really pressed him for what he truly saw in that mirror. He had seen love. It was a different scene every time he peered into that thin, reflective glass, but he knew what it was. Sometimes it would be Fred and him getting married, or exchanging those knowing glances, or taking a walk around the park as an old couple, or living in a world where their relationship, one that was quite a bit more intimate than a normal sibling relationship, wasn't "gross" or "sick" or "wrong". Because to them, it wasn't any of those things. It seemed like society would never understand that everything between them always felt so right.

Maybe in the back of his mind, George had always realized that it counted as incest, but it couldn't possibly be incest when it seemed as if they were _made_ for each other, right? They were soul mates who had found each other at birth, or two people who were part of one being, destined to share one soul, one love, one _lifetime_ together. That was what he had seen in the mirror. A world where he and Fred could walk out on the streets and do what normal couples did. A world where it would be normal for him to embrace his twin in a more than brotherly way, and it would be accepted.

But now... George knew what he would see. He bit his lip as his fingers delicately held a corner of a dirty white sheet. He shivered, but not from the cold or anticipation. It was more like a tremble than anything, but not out of fear either. No, it was because his body had been through too much, and his mind had processed too much, and his eyes had seen too much in such a minute amount of time. Quickly, before he could convince himself not to, he yanked the sheet off of the mirror, and it fluttered to the ground beside him, as if in slow-motion.

Fred. That was who he saw in the mirror. He blinked, but the image in the mirror refused to change. The same brown eyes stared back at him, not lifeless, like his were, but full of merriment, tears gathering at the corners from sheer joy. The same flaming red hair – the Weasleys' trademark – lit up the edges of the mirror, and he could remember nights when he had fallen asleep next to his twin. As if on instinct, George's hand flew to his own head, strands of silky hair sliding past his slender fingers. Not his fingers. Fred's. He knew the way everyone would look at him now that Fred was gone. He wasn't the one everyone had loved. No, that was Fred. What was he? A mere shadow, a painful reminder to his mother of her loss, of the other boy with the same perpetual smile that he had. Except his wasn't perpetual anymore. In fact, it was anything but.

His eyes flickered upward again, and he saw his image on the glass. Another painful reminder of the boy that once stood by his side, the boy who no longer was. The boy who everyone preferred over him. And when he said everyone, George included himself.

He couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't stand the way that Fred seemed to look back at him with _cheerfulness _in his eyes, as if even in death, he was capable of being the more optimistic, the happier of the two. Slowly, he bent down to retrieve the sheet from where it had landed, and he draped it carefully over the mirror again, making sure it was arranged symmetrically over the glass. George shifted it this way and that, telling himself that the sheet had to be on the mirror in exactly the right place. He wasn't fooling anyone though, not really. That tiny part in him, that thought gnawing at the back of his mind told him the truth that he couldn't ignore. He wanted to see Fred, no matter how much he tried to resist the mirror's temptations. All he wanted was one more glance in the mirror, always one more glance. But one glance always turned to two, and before he knew it, he'd been there for an hour at least, while the battle continued outside.

Finally, he realized where he was, what he was doing, and how disappointed Fred would be in him if he could see him right now. George covered up the mirror with the sheet and turned around to the small piece of shiny metal that he and Fred always kept next to the mirror, to help them re-enter reality. It was ingenious, really, and again, Fred's idea. But this time, it didn't help him. This time, it was even more painful, for Fred's image was also on this reflective surface, and it was on every reflective surface he looked at. At the same time though, it wasn't Fred. No, it was George, and no matter how much they looked alike, it would always be him and not Fred. Because he could never be Fred. He just wasn't good enough. That small birthmark on the back of his calf told him that he wasn't his twin, and he never would be.

He peered into the flat sheet of metal again, and this time, he was angry. The emotion just bubbled up within him: anger at himself, anger at the Death Eaters, anger at Fred. In his reflection, the eyes weren't right, and the mouth wasn't right, and the facial expression wasn't right. Fred's eyes weren't this dark, and his mouth wasn't twisted with rage, and his face was never this hurt. A vein pulsed on his jaw as he gritted his teeth, and before he knew what he was doing, George found his fingers wrapping around the cool metal, and he threw it across the room. It shattered upon impact with the wall, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the sheet concealing the mirror's glass shift, a corner of the reflective surface showing.

It was enough for George to catch an unruly strand of fiery hair. It should have been alright, and he should have been able to cover up the mirror again, but he couldn't. Yanking off the sheet for what would be the last time, he uncovered the dirty glass again, and he saw Fred. The boy on the other side of the mirror gave a little wave and a small smile, then laughed merrily, as if this were all a joke, and he enjoyed taunting his twin, mocking him. George couldn't stand it anymore, and again, he didn't think as his hands acted automatically, as if they had a mind of their own. Pale fingers curled up into a fist as veins bulged on his forearms. The fist met the Mirror of Erised at a startling speed, and spidery cracks appeared on the glass, spreading like droplets of water on a window pane until they reached the edge.

"I love you, Fred," George whispered, his voice too hoarse to speak properly. "I always did, and I always will. Don't you ever forget that." He sat still, as if he were paralyzed in front of the mirror, his knuckles still grazing against the now ruined glass. Thin droplets of blood began to gather out of cuts on his knuckles, tracing a trail down to his wrists before sliding off his arms and gathering at a pool beside his feet. His blood stained the shattered glass crimson as it fell next to him. The mirror was ruined now. Broken. Like Fred's promise that they would always be together. Like him.

George could almost hear Fred's voice ringing in his ears amidst the steady, rhythmic dripping of blood as it fell onto the wooden floor, saying something about how it was bad to break a mirror. Oh well. Seven years of bad luck... a lifetime of grief.


End file.
